Tag: Scenery

Today I’ve painted the leaning tower of Pisa and the Blackpool Tower for our pantomime that is on in two weeks.. Oh Yes it is! Oh no its not! Took three hours to complete both… Now I’m very hungry so off to cook food!

These are two more boards that I’m painting for the Penkhull panto. This time I have black boards to paint on and it’s taking a lot of paint! I think the acrylic paints I used are a bit too thin. The colour seems to sink in, not float on the surface so that they won’t show up as well on the stage. I’m going to get some stronger paint for next week with more pigment and less filler in them.

These two took a while to paint and it was very cold in the hall. I’m ready for some warm food and a rest.

Ok so I’ve found some more photos of scenery, this time from 2011. I think I was influenced by Van Gough for these. The harvest scenery was reused in 2013.

I hope the people putting up the scenery, the members of the cast, and my family don’t mind me using their images. I guess they have been shared a lot of times, and as this is 7 years ago they probably don’t look the same anyway!

So why Van Gogh…? It’s the energy in his paintings that I love, the swirl of atmosphere and emotion. Not all art has to be completely figurative or abstract. To me his work sits between the two. I dont know if the phrase magic realism even fits his type of art, but anyway, both he and many other artists from the same era, like Gauguin for instance, had revolutionised the way paintings were made.

I have to say I love the impressionists and the post Impressionists. As the society around them changed, they worked their magic on art. There are other schools of art, like fauvism and expressionism, cubism and surrealism. They all made a difference too. But I still think the Impressionists and post Impressionists are my favourites.

Looking on Facebook, memories pop up from years ago. These pictures were taken in July 2013. I’m not sure if I did all of them that year. I may have painted over an old one from a year or two before.

As on other occasions harvest was one of the themes. Also the industrialisation of Stoke on Trent, when canals were dug out and bottle ovens and kilns were built. I even had to paint a public house. (With working door!)

I’m not sure how many years I have done this for and its always a bit of a rush job, or my health hasn’t been good. But I feel so much part if my community that I won’t say no.

I would love to do more, make the flats more intricate, more like murals. But at the end of the day they are only on display for a few hours, one day in a year. Just as long as the scenery helps tell the story…..that’s what they are there for.